This month, we're happy to announce a major new initiative from the March of Dimes - the Prematurity Campaign. This five-year campaign is our boldest, most important campaign since the fight against Polio! As promised, we'll also tell you more about Emma Henderson after giving you a sneak peak last month. In addition, we're happy to annouce that it is WalkAmerica season once again - visit our new site for information and online registration. We're also please to report that Worth Magazine has once again rated us a top charity!

Please give us your comments, suggestions and feedback to our newsletter, please e-mail us at askus@marchofdimes.com.

We're thrilled to announce the launch of the March of Dimes Prematurity Campaign. The campaign is a five-year, $75 million campaign to address, awareness, education and research to help families have healthier babies.

Prematurity is a common, serious, costly medical burden which is a major risk factor for child illness & disability. Prematurity is the scond highest cause of infant death.

The March of Dimes two main goals for this campaign are to increase public awareness of the problems of prematurity to at least 60% and to decrease the rate of preterm birth in the U.S. by at least 15%.

We intend to raise public awareness, educate pregnant women and parents, assist practitioners, invest in research and increase access.

Check our web site for additional announcements for the launch of the offical prematurity Web site coming in early February.

Our media partner, Discovery Health Channel will be broadcasting an uprecedented 10-hour television event!

Discovery Health Channel will broadcast live the labor, delivery and birth of babies from medical centers located in Orlando, Detroit and Phoenix. BIRTH DAY LIVE! celebrates one of life's greatest joys -- the birth of a child -- while reflecting Discovery Health Channel's commitment to bring viewers the real-life drama and immediacy of what it takes to bring a new life into the world.

BIRTH DAY LIVE! premieres Monday, February 17, and will air from 4 PM - 2 AM (ET). The Discovery Health Channel event will follow patients, doctors, and nurses at three major U.S. hospitals: Florida Hospital in Orlando; Hutzel Women's Hospital in Detroit; and Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix.

For more information and access to their site, please visit Discovery Health Channel today!

For the second consecutive year, the March of Dimes has been named one of the nation’s top charities in Worth Magazine’s annual “America’s 100 Best Charities” issue.

Citing March of Dimes’ successful efforts in expanding newborn screening programs and investing in research to fight birth defects, Worth Magazine said in its December/January 2003 issue, "The March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation is all about healthy babies."

Read the complete article

Last month, we introduced you to Emma and promised to tell you more about her in this month's issue. Emma is the 2003 March of Dimes National Ambassador and was born 3 months premature. Today she is an active 7 year-old but every day has to cope with the continuing complications of being born too soon.

Prior to Emma’s birth, Susan Henderson became an active volunteer for the March of Dimes and was elected to serve on the Oklahoma March of Dimes Board of Directors in 1994. She could never have known how personally she would be affected by the work she was already doing.

Without warning, at just under six months into her pregnancy, Susan went into preterm labor. She spent the next ten days at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, lying upside down with her head suspended thirty degrees below her waist trying to delay Emma’s premature birth and increase her chances of survival. At the end of those ten days, Emma was born on September 6, 1995, measuring a mere 13 inches long. She was immediately transferred to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where she remained for the next 101 days as her parents watched and waited.

Emma underwent five neurosurgeries by the age of one. Doctors warned her parents repeatedly that Emma’s brain might never form or grow into a healthy infant brain. They told them she was at extreme risk for blindness and deafness, and even told them at one point that she would most likely have to live her entire life in a healthcare institution.

Before leaving the NICU, laser surgery was performed on both eyes to save her eyesight. Today, Emma lives with a permanent shunt in her brain, which drains fluid from her brain into her abdominal cavity, where it can be reabsorbed. She has a diagnosis of mild cerebral palsy. Most recently, in spring 2001, Emma underwent a heel cord extension surgery to correct toe walking that is common among children with cerebral palsy. Emma’s parents still worry about these and other long-term effects of being born too soon.

Click here for additional information including a medical overview and for more information about our National Ambassador Program.

Please consider making a donation today to help save babies!